Nothing seems to stop Gabz nowadays. After his takes on Terminator and Top Gun, he’s back with a brilliant tribute to First Blood. Despite his 80′s cult action movie status, First Blood was a real take on the status of Nam veterans back home. Gabz is a Polish talented artist, who already took part in our One Year of Batman project (his Batman print is still available on French Paper Art Club), and he honors John Rambo in a gorgeous way. On sale on Grey Matter Art next wednesday the 4th.

Here is a very small vision of Todd R. Reis incredible art. This comics passionate has been creating 3D collages since 1973 with more than 600 pieces until now. It’s hard to realize the amount of work necessary to give life to the cultest comics covers ever. He himself says on his Facebook page that the pictures do not render the final result very well, but in my opinion it’s still amazing. His work is renowned in the whole world and he already worked for BIG comics creators such as (among many others) Bob Kane, Joe Kubert, John Byrne, Jack Kirby, Sergio Aragones or Joe Schuster. My advice : have a look at his Facebook page right now !

A few weeks ago we released an official Batman screen print by Stan Sakai. For those who may not know him, he is the creator of the cult saga Usagi Yojimbo, a pearl he’s been writing and drawing for more than 30 years. For the release of his Batman print with Geek-Art and French Paper Art Club, he was kind enough to answer a few question. A great way to get to know more about this legend of US comics.

1/ Hi Stan, could you please take a moment to introduce yourself, and tell us about your artist background / career path for those who might don’t know you ?

I have been writing and drawing the adventures of Usagi Yojimbo (“Rabbit Bodyguard”) for more than 30 years. Usagi is an unemployed samurai rabbit wandering around a 17th century Japan populated by funny animals.

I grew up in Hawaii reading comic books and, after graduating from college, I wanted to do a series inspired by the life of a real samurai named Miyamoto Musashi. One day I drew a small sketch of a rabbit with his ears tied into a “chonmage”, a samurai topknot, and Usagi was born. Instead of human characters, I drew a world populated by intelligent animals. Usagi is currently published in the US by Dark Horse Comics.

3/ Could you tell us more about the relationship between the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Usagi ? How did you meet Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in the mid-80s ?

Usagi was first published in 1984, the same year the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was introduced to the world. I think they both came out the same month. Anyway, there were not many black and white comic books in the US at that time, so we corresponded and became friends. It was at a San Diego Comic-book Convention that Peter Laird asked me if I would like Usagi to become a part of the TMNT cartoon and merchandise line. Usagi was also in their second cartoon series produced but 4Kids.

4/ Tell us more about the choice of drawing one and only one (mostly) kind of stories / heroes ? Did you ever think about letting Usagi go ?

I have worked almost exclusively with Usagi. However I am free to do any type of story I like. I have done adventures, mysteries, romance, and I even did a science fiction series about Space Usagi, a descendant of the original Usagi that takes place in the far future. However, I am also free to work on projects for other publishers. I did variant covers for Marvel Comics, most recently for their new Star Wars comics.

My style evolved over time, but my big artistic influences are Steve Ditko, Milo Manara, Moebius, and Sergio Aragones. My story telling style is influenced more by cinema than by comics, especially the films of Akira Kurosawa.

When working on a story, i start with an outline of the plot. This generally takes a few pages with description of the action, snatches of dialogue and research notes. Then I will do small thumbnail drawings breaking down the outline into pages and panels. These thumbnails look like rough comic book pages. They help me pace the story and act as my final script. Then I work on the finished pages. I generally work in black and white, but I use watercolors when I do color work.

I usually work during the day, with the television on for company. I cannot watch sports, foreign films or animation because I need to actually watch the TV. I have it on mainly for background, and will occasionally look up to see what is on the screen.

Inspiration comes from all around us–sketching, reading, watching televisions–but my biggest source of inspiration is my editor, Diana Schutz. She is the sweetest person working in American comics, but I am terrified of her and when she says I have a deadline you had better believe I will send the next story in before that deadline.

I have a freedom that most US comic creators do not have. I own Usagi and my publishers have no say in what kind of stories I want to do. In fact, my publishers do not see any of the story until I send it to them fully complete. This is very unlike other US comics where there is a team of creators–a writer, penciller, inker, letterer–all supervised by an editor who approves everything every step of the way.

I remember buying Fantastic Four #2 off the racks back in 1961 or 62. DC comics had raised the prices of all their comics to 12 cents, but Marvel was still 10 cents. I saved 2 cents, and fell in love with that comic. It is difficult to describe just how different that comic was at that time. It was a group, including a Thing that looked like a monster, but they did not get along smoothly like other teams. Jack Kirby’s art was very powerful and perfect for it.

I love working on Usagi. I just finished my dream project called Senso. It is HG Wells’ War of the Worlds meet Usagi. It takes place about 20 years in Usagi’s future. It opens with the final battle between Lord Noriyuki and Lord Hikiji, when the martians attack. I got to draw those giant tripod monsters fighting armored samurai armies, aliens fighting ninja, and entire towns up in flames. It is not as historically accurate as the stories I am usually known for, but it sure is fun. Another project I recently completed is a retelling of The 47 Ronin. This is one of the most celebrated and most well-known incidents in Japanese history. I got to draw real people for this project.

Batman is my favorite superhero. I like that it was his determination, obsession really, that turned Bruce Wayne into a superhero. Superman came to earth and gained powers, but Batman is his own creation.